Tag: Made redundant

This is a very revealing, open and honest post! Although I am redundant from a full-time employed job of 5 years since last Sept/Oct – I stayed on Part-time for 4 weekends, and now my money has been used up from my redundancy pay and sadly UK benefits are not enough to pay all the bills and eat, I am fortunate that my Grandma left me small amount of money in her will to be able to eat. Thanks to her I can still have food in my belly at the moment. Yes, I am a writer and T-Shirt designer and seller, but sadly don’t make much money from that at the moment. It just about covers my business insurance and my expenses are far high with domains I need to continue to renew and all the other costs associated with that, and the time factor.

However, I have had dreams and plans of what I want to do with my websites/business for a long time and invested the last 6 years of time and money into my education so I can build a successful long-term business. I used some of my redundancy money to help me buy the systems and services I need to take my goals, plans, ambitions and dreams forward, and succeed. Do I think I will do it? Yes. I don’t just think it, I believe it, categorically, that I will be 100% successful, that my current situation, does not define who I am or what my future circumstances will be. Am I scared, you bet! But I wouldn’t have my life any other way. I could stay safe and be like a mouse, but that is not going to help me, and at the moment I am in danger anyway. Danger of all the possibilities of what happens if I can’t get an employed job for some reason – I am trained in retail since leaving college and a lot of the shops in the UK and closing down – and the dangers of if I do get an employed job again, only to be made redundant quite quickly again. Between this year and the next 5, most high street shops will close down, this means if I go back into that line of work, I am doomed, in a nutshell, in the long-time. So if I had some advice to give to you, it would be to always work hard at an ‘online’ side hustle. I know people who are making hundreds of thousands of pounds and millions of pounds from businesses that are online and got offline services to compliment it. I know a lot of models about building a profitable online business. I bought some thing lasts year that should have helped, but sadly, not everything goes according to plan, and not everything works as you wish it would, so you have to change direction and go get something else that will and start-over. Entrepreneurship is not for the faint-hearted, that is for sure!

So why the poster above this! Well although I am redundant and money is very tight, I am still making absolutely sure that I used redundancy as a golden opportunity to fulfil my goals, ambitions and dreams. I have my ebooks on my own online Quirky Books e-book store now within www.quirkybooks.net and www.quirky-books.com – a dream come true, since starting my www.quirkybooks.wordpress.com over 7 years ago – 8 years this November! I bought an ebook theme years ago, this year it became faulty with no way of me fixing it and the developer passing the buck – so I moved on and bought something else!

Whilst I am still actively seek work, I started to create my Ignite Your Happy course as I mentioned in a previous post, and I am still working on that one for my Quirky Academy! But in the meantime, I have been creating a short technical Kindle book for a very specific niche and my first ‘mini’ online training course for my Quirky Academy (soon to be officially launched – I have a bit more learning curve to do first – a big bit more – but I will succeed). Quirky Academy has been a dream of mine for years, but at the time I just thought it would be a personal and professional development training centre for Quirky people, with no defined niche as such, just Quirky people! But way before I was made redundant, I bought a high level course from an Entrepreneur, the most amount of money I ever spent on a course in my life to date, which I spent months going through and learning from, and I realised my niche was Entrepreneurs, Start-ups and Creatives, because we are the Quirky crazy people who aren’t normal! We live with mission and purpose and vigour. We live to be happy and please ourselves, whilst pleasing others and helping others at the same time. We can’t sit still, we have to keep moving forward with our lives, working on various projects and making our life really count and although it can be a hard slog at times – something the top entrepreneurs don’t want you to believe, as it would scupper their chances of you buying their products and services, and they are correct that you can work smarter, rather than harder, so their solutions aren’t wrong, but you still have to initially be the grinder and fuel the fire as it were, and those initial stages, could be years of your life! Are you prepared to do that? Give your life, to get a better one later on? I live for now and my future, it’s a fine balancing act. I gave up TV years ago, so my entrepreneur work can take flight. I know I was born for a special purpose, I know I am not normal and never have been. I am leader, not a follower. I think for myself – which many people in the employed sphere don’t like as I won’t conform to every bit of their ideal employee! – I have a brain and my own opinion, and I like to stand out and be outstanding. I am not a sheep, but the shepherd! I am not the robot, but the revolutioniser! I am not the norm, but the Quirky! I simply don’t fit into a box, not in my personal or professional life! I am also friends with a lot of entrepreneurs who share that vision of defining your own life and leading it by your own example and rules of life, so there will be other tutors on my Quirky Academy teaching courses in their specialist areas. I can’t wait for you to see it when it goes live. I am starting small and building big. I know the best of me, is still yet to come. Yes, I believe I was born to be a beast selling Author and I would love to write 24/7 if I could, but guess what? I actually love teaching and creating online video training courses to help people. So yeah, Quirky Academy is an all new online training centre, for entrepreneurs, start-ups and creatives, and by the 5th of June 2018, it will be live and looking good! Courses will appear one-by-one at first, and get more and more as momentum builds and I have the support in place for other tutors.

I already launched the trailer for my new Quirky Academy channel recently. Here it is and please subscribe, I would love you to support me in my journey and watch how I grow, and I can teach you a lot of stuff that I know already, so we can grow together!

So I still hear you jumping up and down and screaming at me, what has this got to do with the poster – ah! Well another dream I have had in the most recent years, is to be a speaker, specifically on stage in London. My specialist subject is Asexuality – Asexualise is my brand and I am the Author of Asexual Perspectives 47 Asexual Stories, Love, Life and Sex, ACElebration of Asexual Diversity. Here is the link so you can check it out and shop for it https://amzn.to/2I6ZM96

So it would seem I am finally going to get to be a public speaker, in London, and on a topic (asexuality), that I know a lot about! So this is fabulous news. My hotel accommodation and transport are already booked and an asexual friend will be filming me and we will be hanging out together for 3 days, so that will be super cool! – You know I mentioned before about expenses being more than incomings at the moment – yeah, this is one of those times! But I will live my dream and it will be great for my career. As I have not completely got rid of my anxiety, it will be a break through boundaries personally for me!

You may not know this, but I organise Asexual (in person) meetups in my city of Exeter in the UK, and our next one is on Saturday 19th of May, but I am meeting up with two asexual guys the day before (tomorrow), as they are staying in a hotel. On Saturday we will be meeting up for food and drink and then going to the Underground Passages. Here is a video so you can have a peek.

I am a heteroromantic asexual – into guys only, and I love romance, kissing and affection. I love to meet other asexuals and it is really nice for me to be in the company of guys who enjoy my company without wanting to have sex with me – although I am attracted to guys, I never get the need, urge or want for sex, and yes, I have had that in the past and yes, my ex was good at it, and no, I don’t need it. Kissing I love, but not the sex, thanks. I would rather do the washing up and I hate washing up!

So yeah, in one year, this year, 2018, all of my dreams will come true! Well, I have not met my Asexual soulmate yet, that I know of, so that is the 4th dream! Yes, if I don’t get that right away, I can wait, while I build my dream career! But this is my absolute year to shine and get everything I want in terms of dreams coming true, so who knows, the year is young in this respect, with plenty more chance of me fulfilling my goals, ambitions and dreams! Of course I have more dreams to come true, like earning a full-time living from my online websites/business and never have to be in an employed job ever again, and come off benefits, and be able to eat without having to worry about money going down and not coming in – and all the potential issues with that! Which I will not think about as it just stops me from doing anything – it is paralysing. I am on a mission to be super successful and my life depends on it, and so does all the lives of those who I can impact and help with what I already know! So let’s do this together! See redundancy as an opportunity to live your purpose and live your dreams! I know I am, and I would love you to join me in my Quirky mission, take my hand and lets do this together!

Some look at their dream from afar, never really exploring how they are going to achieve it. Never making a plan, never taking any action, never taking any risks, never learning; growing; thinking; or doing. I am not one of those people. I see a dream and I go after it. Sometimes it takes longer than anticipated to get it, but I won’t give up. Better to have lived and tried, than given up!

I am being made redundant for the 3rd time in my life on Thursday 21st Sept. I am however, going to be staying on for 4 weekends, part-time, until 15th of October. It is in effect to trial the part-time job that they are replacing my full-time one with. But after that I will be taking redundancy as I cannot live on a 16 hour contract.

Although I keep getting tearful at leaving a day job I love, and leaving work colleagues – some of whom I can call friends, and feeling the anticipation of what job I will get to replace it, I am also optimistic that I can now pursue my dreams and devote the time I need to make them happen. The 4 week trial will actually be a trial for my own business stuff, to see how well I can cope working from home by being routined and disciplined about it, to achieve the results I want. Although I think what I have planned, will take more than 4 weeks to get off the ground .

I feel there are so many books in me that I have to get out while I am alive. Two are especially important and an absolute must, so I have already started to type one of those up! And trying to get it out asap.

My Quirky Academy is going to be an online training centre for entrepreneurs, start-ups and creatives, and I have started the foundation of correct web set-up for that. I have just obtained my independent IP address for my sites, instead of being on shared hosting, and an SSL certificate for Quirky Academy and two other sites, so I can have secure shopping carts on them. One of those sites is my own Quirky Books e-book store – I have waited over 6 years to convert that site into an e-book store and have much to learn.

So life for me right now, is about to become an unstable rollercoaster of an adventure, one full of optimism, musts, and action taking. One in which I aim to keep a positive mindset, to go achieve my dreams.

Wish me to get my dream, as I will always wish you to get yours.

Stay positive

Sandra xx

P.S. If you are also facing redundancy or know someone who is, you will find my Break Through The Barriers Of Redundancy book a great buy, packed full of useful information on wellbeing, mindset, applying for jobs, with CV and Cover letter templates, that so far this third time around, has got me a 100% response rate to my direct job applications.

If you have been made redundant here is a helpful book for you!!

Generation Cherry Book Review

Generation Cherry is a cracking book for the 50+ generation. Being an avid reader and Author of self-help, how-to and Personal And professional development books, I can see how much time, effort, knowledge and skill, the writer has put into creating this book.

Essentially, this book is a well-written and crafted system for how to cope with your life after retirement, redundancy, or a change in circumstance, using the 4 autonomies to get your life in balance, keep it that way, and get a second bite of the cherry of life!

What is good about this book is it also covers how to deal with life when you have less money, in a productive and positive way, using Enlightened Thrift. So you have that feel good factor in your life, whatever the circumstances.

The use of quotes and references throughout the book adds to its helpfulness and I particularly enjoyed reading the play on Stephen Covey’s words “Seven Insidious Excuses Forcibly Rejected By Highly Effective people”.

If you are into NLP, A Coach, Entrepreneur, or New Lifer, this book is for you!

I would have given this book 5 Stars because I admire the Author’s work and have respect for him because of it. However, I am not the intended target audience, I am under 40 and did not like the remarks made about young people throughout the first half of the book. I felt they are stereotyped and as not knowing what they want and that they aren’t as successful in business as older people are. The Author managed to redeem himself in the latter half of the book, where he reveals having a young mindset is key to living a long and happy life, and that in his 70s, he adopts a young mindset and is still learning and looking forward to new adventures, while being a second biter of Generation Cherry!

This is a question that I noticed is being persistently typed into search engines.

So to clarify, Beat Redundancy Blues is about:

How to stop yourself from feeling down about the fact that you have been made redundant

How to deal with the problems that you are faced with because of redundancy

How to deal with the grief you are experiencing

How to cope with the mixture of feeling and emotions that redundancy can bring with it

Feeling understood and supported

Creating a positive outlook

Fostering self-belief

Changing your mindset

Conquering your fears

Giving you the advice, hints, tips, information and knowledge needed to get back into work

In a nutshell it is about tackling any part of redundancy that makes you feel “blue”, in other words, sad, depressed, anxious, worried, alone, unhappy and the list could go on but I think you get the picture. It is about conquering those negative feeling, thoughts and emotions so that you no longer feel “blue” but instead are looking forward to a new future, with a focus on feeling better and enabling you to get back into work.

Do you have any comments, thoughts, or anything you would like to add to the list?

Click The Pic To Buy My Break Through The Barriers Of Redundancy Book On Amazon USA

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